Wall Street rally lifts PSEi to 7,000 levels

The PSEi bounced back to the 7,000 level on the back of positive sentiment overnight on Wall Street that encouraged buying in global markets.

The bellwether PSEi surged by 2.47 percent or 169.64 points to 7,030.95, while the wider All Shares rose by 1.95 percent or 81.22 points to 4,247.78.

Luis Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development Corp., said the Philippine market “tracked the US markets, which rallied late in the session.”

Wall Street closed on an optimistic note Tuesday, with the Dow up by 0.60 percent or 119.16 points at 19,881.76, while the S&P 500 climbed by 0.85 percent or 19 points to 2,257.83, and Nasdaq rose by 0.85 percent or 45.97 points to 5,429.08.

The Wall Street rally was due to the sharp reversal of oil prices that led to the rally of the dollar, as well as the two-year high in US factory output for December, Limlingan said.

The US manufacturing index improved by 1.5 percentage points at 54.7 in December from 53.2 in November.

“That was the strongest improvement in business conditions in almost two years. The improvement was largely driven by stronger rates of employment growth and inventory building which more than offset slightly weaker increases in output and new orders,” Limlingan said.

It encouraged investors to go on a buying spree across markets on Wednesday.